When President Donald Trump chose Pete Hegseth for Defense secretary, incoming officials knew they’d need to surround the inexperienced Fox News host with accomplished staff who could handle the nation’s largest bureaucracy. Hegseth would be the show horse, they figured, and others at the top would keep the Pentagon on track.
What happened was the opposite. Hegseth surrounded himself with advisers who quickly turned into vicious rivals for power — whose bitter brawl has now unraveled into revenge power plays, surprise firings, accusations of leaking and embarrassing headlines that are blowing up the Pentagon, distracting from Trump’s agenda and possibly jeopardizing Hegseth’s job.
Many administration feuds are driven by ideological or factional differences, splitting old-school conservatives from MAGA headliners and “America First” activists. That does not appear to be the case here: This one is all about personality conflict, according to interviews with nine current and former Defense Department officials as well as others close to the feud, granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive political issue. Hegseth’s closest advisers privately jockeyed for influence, creating festering distrust and gamesmanship that has rocked the world’s premier defense agency.
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At the center was Joe Kasper, Hegseth’s
departing chief of staff, who people familiar with the matter said created a toxic workplace culture and played an instrumental role last week in
pushing out three top Pentagon officials. Those firings, they said, were an attempt to consolidate power. Kasper denied inappropriate behavior or having anything to do with the dismissals.
On the other side were the fired employees, trusted Hegseth allies. Those staffers
— senior adviser Dan Caldwell, deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, chief of staff to the deputy Defense secretary — were considered Hegseth’s closest advisers and maintain their innocence.
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A longtime aide and friend of indicted Rep. Duncan Hunter, Kasper was helping oversee his office when a series of scandals roiled the California Republican’s office. These included allegations that Hunter
regularly drank heavily while serving in Congress. Investigators also inquired
about relations he had with a young woman working in his office. He was eventually sentenced to 11 months in prison for misusing taxpayers funds. (He was
pardoned by Trump in 2020.)
Kasper would later work at the Department of Homeland Security, the Navy and the Air Force in the first Trump administration and as a lobbyist. But critics say he quickly ran into trouble with his new job at the Pentagon.
He was often late to meetings and developed a reputation for dropping the ball on critical tasks with little follow-up, according to three people who witnessed his behavior. Another person familiar with his management said he “lacked the focus and organizational skills needed to get things done.”
While some who know him say he was fun and charming, three of the people said he frequently berated officials in meetings and repeatedly referred to military officials by a lower rank.
And at times, Kasper’s detractors say his leadership seemed almost juvenile. He graphically described his bowel movements to colleagues in one high-level meeting, according to two people who were in the meetings.
During that meeting, “he turned [and] he goes, ‘Can I just tell everyone around this table that I just took an enormous shit right before coming in here?’” according to two people who were present.
“People were like, ‘what? Like, this is a business meeting,’” the official said.
